Toto (...shudder...). They did add to the cheesy 50's Historical Epic quality in some parts of the film - but that whole aspect may have been unintentional.Liked Brian Eno's "Prophecy Theme", though.

While I'm here... Anyone ever notice that the final hand-to-hand combat scene in Lynch's Dune is structured almost exactly like the final hand-to-hand combat scene in Flash Gordon (another De Laurentis production)? Been a long time since I saw Flash Gordon, and I'm in no hurry to change that fact, but I thought the similarity was more than coincidental.

Man, that movie kinda sucked (especially compared to that one where The Rock trashes a casino with a piece of 2x4), but the rope-swinging midget fight scene did rock. And that last blowing-shit-up bit is pretty too.

But not as pretty as sandworms. Ever since I first read Dune, I've wanted to see a decent movie adaptation of the bit when Paul and the Fremen blow the shit out of the Wall with the House Nukes and ride the Worms through into the plain at Arrakeen. Cos that's one of the best bits in the whole book. Yeah, I dunno why either.

I will fight till no Harkonen breathes Arakeen air. Didn't read a thing. Saw a movie once many eons ago and they handed out a little info cheat-sheet to keep you informed. Didn't need it. Loved it. Knew it wasn't the book. It was the movie. And, you know, Dino Di Laurentis...Nights of Cabiria, I saw last night. Cried. Fellini, I know, but, Produced by...and I thought how interesting...And, you know, this thing might be good too. Saw no children, but did see and have been through that area of Oregon where Herbert used to survey for the U.S. Govt. where, Dune City, etc. came from. We shall see. We shall see. Thanks for the info...now, GRAVEL, Anna Mercury, Black Summer, etc. please.

Oh me God. It is hard, even in my drunken state, to comprehend WTF u r talkin' about. I can understand many of the terms. But God. U r more fooked up than me. How can u even bring finger 2 keyboard in ur state?

And yes, Dino Di Laurentis was an AWESOME producer. But, most of what u said didn't make sense.

I remember watching a very long version of the Lynch film that had Mike Ploog illustrated storyboards explaining the anti-Machine period along with added narration by the Empress/Historian while in Japan in 1988. It that the Smithee version you're talking about? It's a very brilliant 7 hours of film that I wish I could see again.

The TV version had heart. And all blue eyes. One doesn't negate the other.

@stsparky - yeah, that's the "Smithee" version - from what I understand Lynch didn't have the time to supervise a "director's cut", so footage unused in the theatrical version was used (without colorizing all the appropriate eyes), and the venerable directorial pseudonym was employed.

the lynch movie more effectively captures the soul of dune, at the cost of accuracy to the novel. the deliciously over the top acting from all hands, the complete insanity of the production design, the constant voice over and internal monologue, the dream sequences, the guild navigators, the shield suits, the crazy sonic ray wierding modules, the baron floating around screaming, feyd in a bluesteel speedo, 'i will kill him!', and so on. dune is epic and enthralling and baroque and nonsensical and i adore every moment of it.

the scifi miniseries was marginally longer (half again vs the extended cut, twice as long as the theatrical cut) but it still wasn't long enough. it was more faithful to the specificity of the novel, but had no soul. the production design and visual style ranged from good to blandly unimaginative. the acting was largely wooden and lifeless. the cgi exteriors and the sandworms were solid, but the sets looked like soundstages. they cut the internal monologue and voice over, but that meant half the book had to be clumsily inserted into dialogue. it looked kind of like dune, but it didn't feel like dune.

i should point out that i never finished the scifi channel version, and that counts as a knock against it, in the same way that it's not fair for me to tell someone who couldn't finish the lynch version that they're wrong, and it really is good. it actually IS quite good, in it's way, but that doesn't matter. it's not good in a way that they can appreciate, and that's an important distinction.

i should also point out that one of my earliest memories was sitting in our living room staring up at the tv, watching the scene where paul first rides the worm. i was around three years old. the lynch movie has been my idea of how dune looked and felt since before i could read, let alone before i'd read the actual novel.

regardless of which version you prefer, neither ultimately satisfies compared to the book unless taken as a seperate thing. to really adapt it, to do the story justice, you would need either peter jackson (massive budget, a trilogy of three hour movies, extended dvd cuts, complete and absolute control from a single masterful auteur) or ron moore / joss whedon (thirteen-ish hour long episodes, slow burn pacing, effective use of sfx vs soundstages, good set and costume design, and a focus on character instead of action).

essentially, unless you can make an hbo series with the budget of a major hollywood blockbuster, you can't do the action stunts and take the time to do the politics. you'd have to focus on one or the other. this is exactly what you see when you compare the lynch and scifi versions, and both have strengths and weaknesses therein.

lynch made dune as an 80s fantasy movie. scifi made dune as half a season of stargate. both failed as adaptations of the source material. therefore, if the worst thing that can happen here is that peter berg makes dune as a flashy explosion-fest with ham-handed dialogue and politics, then we're running three for three on bad dune adaptations.

it will probably not be a masterpiece, but as long as it's watcheable, it can't be any worse than what's come before. and since doing it as a single movie is doomed to failure no matter who's making it, we can just accept right now that it will never do the novel justice, and treat it as it's own thing.

from that point of view, this could be totally great. short of good scifi, there's nothing i love more than bad scifi.

GiuseppeM - Had to pull a piece of your linked article, Orson Scott Card saying,"Whether Dune had any causal influence on the rise of Al Qaeda, Herbert certainly did a superb job of predicting the rise and the power of such an ideology. I would be surprised if there were not, among the followers of Osama bin Laden, at least a few readers of Dune for whom this book feels like their future, their identity, their dream."

Does anyone remember some talk a few years ago (maybe it was in Fortean Times) that Osama was actually a fan of Asimov's Foundation (which is what Al Qaida could be roughly translated as)?